Paul O’Higgins SC [for Denis O’Brien] said that Mr O’Brien was clearly a wealthy man, written about in newspapers and involved in a certain amount of litigation but he told the jurors they could not make a judgment based on any such factor.

He said Mr O’Brien was not “coming the heavy” to destroy people. He said Mr O’Brien could have sued the former editor Ian Kehoe and former business editor Tom Lyons personally, but he did not do that.

He claimed Mr McDowell’s speech was not short of words but that very few of them dealt with what the case was about and said it was not about most of the things the defence claimed it was about, but was much more complex.

Mr O’Higgins accused the newspaper of presenting the articles in a sensationalistic, heavily coloured “get up” designed to wow the reader from the front page.

He said Mr O’Brien claims the message coming from the articles was that the businessman was one of the borrowers most to blame for the destruction of the Irish banking system and the subsequent bail out.

It was irrelevant if the newspaper did not intend to convey that meaning.

Questioning has continued of Ian Kehoe , former editor of The Sunday Business Post in the libel action taken by Denis O’Brien over articles on the 20018 banking crisis published in the newspaper in 2015.

The ‘sheet‘s Olga Cronin is live tweeting from the High Court and can be followed here.

Denis O’Brien (top) and Ian Kehoe (above) arriving at the High Court today

This morning/afternoon.

The High Court, Dublin

Ian Kehoe, the former editor of The Sunday Business Post is being questioned by Denis O’Brien’s barrister Luán Ó Braonáin about articles on the banking crisis published in the paper in 2015. The ‘sheet‘s Olga Cronin is live tweeting from the High Court and can be followed here.

Businessman Denis O’Brien arriving for further hearings in his case against The Sunday Business Post over articles published in the newspaper on March 15, 2015, which detailed a 2008 report by accountants PwC into Ireland’s banks and their top 22 borrowers.

Legal arguments are currently taking place without the jury present.

The ‘sheet‘s Olga Cronin is live tweeting from the High Court and can be followed here.

Denis O’Brien (top), his barrister Paul O’Higgins SC (above) and Tom Lyons, former business editor of The Sunday Business Post

Today.

In the High Court.

Paul O’Higgins SC, for Denis O’Brien, continued to cross-examine the former business editor of the Sunday Business Post Tom Lyons before the former editor of the newspaper Ian Kehoe started to give evidence.

Mr O’Brien is claiming he was defamed by the newspaper on March 15, 2015, when My Lyons and other journalists reported over six pages on an unpublished PwC dossier into Ireland’s banks which had been given to the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen in November 2008.

The newspaper reported that the PwC report revealed 22 men and their associated companies owed Irish banks €25.6billion when the property bubble collapsed.

Mr O’Brien was number ten on the list of 22.

One of Mr O’Brien’s complaints is that he was wrongly “lumped” in with a “gang” of “developer kings”.

This evening, Ann O’Loughlin, in The Irish Examiner, reports:

Mr O’Higgins also played an interview given by Mr Lyons to RTE’s This Week radio programme on March 15th 2015, the day the articles were published.

Mr Lyons denied that showed his attitude in 2015 was that a small group of the biggest bank borrowers had disappeared off “into the sunset” and left the people of Ireland “holding the baby” at the time of the financial crisis in 2008.

He said he made no reference to Mr O’Brien during the interview and had no opportunity to outline what was said in the articles about Mr O’Brien, which was his loans were performing in 2008 and he went on to repay all his debts.

The interviewer had asked him, before beginning to record the interview, not to make any reference to Mr O’Brien because the lawyers had said “not to go near him”, he said.

Today in the High Court, Paul O’Higgins SC, for Denis O’Brien, is continuing to cross-examine the former business editor of the Sunday Business Post Tom Lyons.

Judge Bernard Barton told the jury at the outset of this morning’s proceedings that it’s likely he will give them their instructions next Wednesday.

Mr O’Higgins told Mr Lyons that he wanted to go through the details of the SBP articles – spread over six pages and about a November 2008 PwC report on Ireland’s biggest borrowers – from March 15, 2015.

In respect of page one, Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons about his and his then editor Ian Kehoe’s decision to write the strapline ‘Confidential: The files they don’t want you to see”.

He put it to Mr Lyons that, according to the SBP, the “they” was supposed to be a reference for “the Government”.

Mr Lyons confirmed this.

Mr O’Higgins asked if that was the SBP’s position, why didn’t they “say that”. Mr O’Higgins asked why they didn’t make the word “confidential” smaller and write “The ‘Government’ files they don’t want you to see”.

Mr Lyons said they thought their headline sufficiently represented their story. He also said it was “clear from the articles” who commissioned the PwC report – the Government.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that there was a serious crisis in September – before PwC could do a full evaluation on what Ireland’s bank securities were worth. He put it to Mr Lyons that the Government considered that it had to “move”.

Mr Lyons said the Government “didn’t have a full picture of what was going on” until “suddenly one day” they realised that Anglo Irish Bank was “within hours of going under and other banks were close behind it”.

Mr Lyons said then, on September 30, 2008, night of the bank guarantee, with “very unclear information” the Government decided that the entire country would guarantee the banks.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that this was “potentially a very costly thing from the Government’s point of view”. Mr Lyons agreed and said Ireland guaranteed something like €440million.

Mr Lyons agreed with Mr O’Higgins that people were being told this was a “liquidity problem”, as opposed to a “solvency problem” and that “the banks were grand”.

But he said “more sophisticated” people knew more than the public. He said, as an example, businessman Dermot Desmond, wrote a letter within weeks of the guarantee saying “this guarantee isn’t going to solve this” and that the problem was greater than everyone thought.

Mr O’Higgins recalled a RTE Prime Time interview given by the then Financial Regulator Patrick Neary who told those watching that “Ireland’s banks were the best capitalised banks in the world or Europe”.

Mr Lyons said he remembered it and how it sent out the message “everything is grand”.

Mr O’Higgins suggested to Mr Lyons that there was “significant scepticism” surrounding this at the time.

Mr Lyons said he didn’t agree entirely and said when people heard – from leading people in finance and politics – that the entire country was backing the banks “I don’t think everyone would be skeptical, I think some people would be skeptical.”

Mr O’Higgins said, following the guarantee, “most banks recovered briefly and then began to fall again”.

Mr Lyons said he wouldn’t say Anglo Irish Bank recovered. He said “they were fiddling the books” and recalled how the lender was “getting €7billion from Irish Life & Permanent”.

“There was an arrangement between Anglo and Irish Life & Permanent which made it appear that Anglo Irish Bank’s customer deposits were €7.2billion greater than they really were.”

He said: “Anglo was lying to everyone, it was lying to the stock market, it was lying to the public, it was lying to anyone who dealt with it.”

He also mentioned there had been subsequent convictions in respect of this.

Mr O’Higgins suggests that the newspaper’s articles main focus was on Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Lyons disagreed and said there might have been more focus on Anglo Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland but this was because they were bigger banks. He said, for example, EBS was a smaller entity so there was perhaps less coverage about it.

Mr O’Higgins put it Mr Lyons that a lot of information about the banks was known publicly in 2012 – and that a lot was actually known from 2009.

Mr Lyons asked him to specify what information he was referring to.

Mr O’Higgins said he was referring to “issues in relation to the fact the banks were in much more trouble than they thought” and that “there had been a series of peculiarities in Anglo Irish Bank”.

Mr Lyons indicated that the detail in the PwC report about which he was reporting – and, by extension, the Sunday Business Post articles – wasn’t known.

Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons if he believed everyone “dutifully reads all their Sunday papers from beginning to end”.

Mr Lyons said for a paper like the Sunday Business Post, which tends to be read by people who are in business, he suggested they would.

Mr O’Higgins put to Mr Lyons that this was “interesting” and asked “so it wouldn’t matter” what page a story was placed on – front page, back page, etc – “because it’s all going to be read”.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that the hypothesis of his articles was that the PwC report “painted everything in rosy terms when it was nuclear”.

Mr Lyons said, based on his reading of the report, it painted Ireland in “big trouble” and that it stated Ireland could lose €10.6billion.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that he was saying that the PwC report “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on”.

Mr Lyons replied: “No, it was clearly worth something.” Mr Lyons said what the report was, was “overly optimistic”.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that either he was saying the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen – in November 2008 – was “well warned and used the PwC report to tell the truth to the Dail” or he was saying “PwC came nowhere near to describe to the scale of the problem”.

Mr O’Higgins told Mr Lyons he “can’t have it both ways”.

Mr Lyons said the PwC report did come nowhere near the scale of the problem and that this is clear because of the subsequent €64billion EU/IMF bailout.

Mr O’Higgins raised the fact that the PwC report identified five high-risk borrowers. Mr O’Higgins suggested that the point of the SBP articles was to suggest it was “ludicrous” to identify five when it was clear these people “nuked” Irish society.

Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons if he believed PwC was “right or wrong” to identify five high-risk borrowers.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that he had a degree in history and economics and asked if he could understand his question: was the PwC report right in identifying “only” five high-risk borrowers.

Mr Lyons said: “Was it right or wrong? It did.”

Mr O’Higgins quipped that Mr Lyons might “not get a fifth journalist of the years award” if his language skills drop.

Michael McDowell SC, for the Sunday Business Post, told Mr O’Higgins there was “no need to be rude”.

Mr O’Higgins asked the question again.

Mr Lyons said: “It was wrong. Obviously there were more than five [high-risk borrowers].”

Mr O’Higgins asked when he [Mr Lyons] said it was wrong that there were “only” five borrowers in the high-risk category, was he saying this was right or wrong.

Mr Lyons replied: “I’m saying this is what PWC said.”

Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons why did he “waste so many words” and not just say “PwC identified five high-risk borrowers” as opposed to “PwC only identified five high-risk borrowers”.

Mr Lyons said it was a matter for the jury.

Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons about his use of the term “telling and disturbing” when he was referring to the numbers contained in the PwC report and the “individual stories”.

He asked Mr Lyons why the numbers were “telling and disturbing”.

Mr Lyons said because the numbers were “very big” and that it was “disturbing” that anyone would owe so much money to a State-owned bank which had been “nationalised, had committed fraud, and had cooked the books”.

Asked about the “individual stories” being “disturbing”, Mr Lyons said it was disturbing to think anyone would owe very large amounts of money to a bank which had been nationalised, committed massive fraud and “had essentially been shown to have lied left, right and centre”.

Mr O’Higgins asked Mr Lyons if he was saying it was “disturbing” to owe money to Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that much of what he had reported in the Sunday Business Post articles of 2015 was in an article he co-wrote in the Sunday Independent in 2012 with Nick Webb – about Anglo Irish Bank’s top 13 borrowers.

Mr Lyons said not all of the 13 people in the Sunday Independent article made it into the list of 22 drawn up by PwC. He mentioned Paul Coulson as an example whom Mr Lyons said was “like Mr O’Brien a successful, respected businessman”.

Mr Lyons said from the public’s perspective Anglo Irish Bank was a bank which had been nationalised and committed fraud. He said that was “disturbing”.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Mr Lyons that yesterday Mr McDowell SC, for the Sunday Business Post, asked him [Mr Lyons] if his articles were defamatory and Mr Lyons said no.

Mr O’Higgins put to Mr Lyons: “You’re saying that even though the individual stories are ‘telling and disturbing’ …you’re saying that’s not reflecting on the person or not casting a shadow on the persons concerned.”

Jury in #DOBvSBP have been shown this slide from the PWC report that listed the 22 biggest borrowers from Irish banks. Denis O’Brien is said to be 10th on the redacted list. SC for O’Brien has accused Tom Lyons of failing to report that O’Brien had no land and development loans. pic.twitter.com/YSd6N4Qt3D

From top: Sunday Business Post; Tom Lyons and Denis O’brien; the Banking Inquiry’s core book of evidence related to PwC

This morning Paul O’Higgins SC, for businessman Denis O’Brien, continues his cross examination of former editor of the Sunday Business Post about his articles on March 15, 2015, pertaining to a 2008 PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

Mr O’Brien claims the articles were defamatory of him.

The Sunday Business Post denies this.

The confidential PwC report was a Government-commissioned report in which PwC listed the top 22 borrowers of Ireland’s six banks in 2008. The Sunday Business Post reported that PwC recorded Mr O’Brien as No.10 on the list.

In November 2008, after getting the PwC report, the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen told the Dail that Ireland was right to guarantee the banks in September 2008.

He also told the Dáil that there was enough money in Ireland’s banks for the next three years.

The Sunday Business Post reported that the PwC report showed it believed – in its worst case scenario – Ireland’s banks would lose €10.6billion.

Ireland would eventually go on to get a EU/IMF bailout for €64billion in 2010.

The jury in the High Court, before Justice Bernard Barton, has heard that the Sunday Business Post reported in one of the articles:

“[Denis] O’Brien he went on to repay all his debts to Anglo. He is one of AIB and Bank of Ireland’s best clients.”

It’s also heard, on a number of occasions this week, how Mr Lyons destroyed his copy of the PwC report on St Patrick’s Day 2015 by putting it through a shredder in the offices of the Sunday Business Post.

He said he did this to protect his source as he believed the document was traceable.

A common refrain from Mr O’Brien’s legal team is that they have not seen the PwC report.

When it was put to Mr Lyons by his own counsel Michael McDowell SC that it was Mr O’Brien’s case that he was “the odd man out”, that he should never have been put in the articles with the other 21 men – and that to do so was “defamatory, gratuitous, unnecessary” and done of out of “malice” – Mr Lyons said: “Jesus, that’s nonsense.”

Mr Lyons also said he found it “shocking” that Mr O’Brien said he wouldn’t put it past Mr Lyons to just stick Mr O’Brien into the articles.

Mr Lyons rubbished the suggestion that Mr O’Brien was the victim of some kind of “crazy conspiracy” cooked up by him and the former editor of the Sunday Business Post Ian Kehoe.

The jury has also heard that at the time that the articles were published – in March 2015 – the Banking Inquiry was under way.

It heard that the inquiry contacted Mr Lyons for a copy of the PwC report.

But, at this point, Mr Lyons said he had already destroyed it.

Asked earlier this week if he was surprised when the inquiry asked him for the report, Mr Lyons said:

“It did surprise me. I had this suspicion they hadn’t got it. It was a gut instinct. But when it came out that they hadn’t got it, I was very surprised.”

Further to this…

In PwC’s core book of evidence for the Banking Inquiry – which is publicly available online – one section of it’s evidence appears to match the headline figures reported by the Sunday Business Post on March 15, 2015.

The item is headlined:

The top 22 exposures across the six institutions we have reviewed total 25.5 billion of which 13.7 billion (53%) is in Anglo and 8.1 billion (32%) in AIB.

Although redacted, the list of the amount owed by the 22 borrowers in the Banking Inquiry’s PwC summary (page 155) matches the amount owed reported by the Sunday Business Posthere

The newspaper reported that the PwC report revealed 22 men and their associated companies owed Irish banks €25.6billion when the property bubble collapsed.

Mr O’Brien was number ten on the list of 22.

One of Mr O’Brien’s complaints is that he was wrongly “lumped” in with a “gang” of “developer kings”.

He also disputes the figures which Mr Lyons attributed to Mr O’Brien and has said Mr Lyons should have rang him on the Friday before the article was published and asked him if he was “overstretched” or if he had “over borrowed”.

Mr O’Brien has claimed Mr Lyons never put these specific claims to him.

The print article was headlined: “Anglo’s top 13 buccaneer borrowers.”

Mr O’Brien, on Thursday, told the court that he believed he had taken no action over this 2012 Sunday Independent article which revealed his confidential bank details.

On Friday, Mr O’Brien then told the jury that, contrary to what he had said the day before, his understanding was that his spokesman James Morrissey had actually engaged in lengthy correspondence with the Sunday Independent over the 2012 article and that he had, he believed, received an apology from INM’s then group managing editor Michael Denieffe.

But this morning, the jury heard this apology had nothing to do with the article co-written by Mr Webb and Mr Lyons in 2012.

Michael McDowell SC, for the Sunday Business Post, read out correspondence between Mr Lyons and Mr Morrissey ahead of the 2012 article in which Mr Lyons sought to get some information from Mr O’Brien to put into the article.

Mr O’Brien agreed with Mr McDowell that the response from Mr Morrissey was essentially a “get lost” response. But Mr O’Brien said it was “polite”.

Mr McDowell also read out correspondence between Mr Morrissey and Mr Webb after the article was published.

Mr Morrissey had criticised Mr Lyons in his correspondence to Mr Webb and claimed Mr Lyons had acted unprofessionally.

Mr McDowell said this amounted to an “attack” on Mr Lyons.

Mr O’Brien said: “No it was pointing out the obvious.”

He said it was “ridiculous” to pose questions about his banking in the first place as he was never going to give any answers.

Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that this represented the “height of hypocrisy”.

Mr McDowell said Mr O’Brien previously “went to some considerable length” in his evidence to say that the Sunday Business Post never contacted him about Mr Lyons’ story in 2015.

Mr McDowell asked how he could “reconcile” telling Mr Lyons and Mr Webb to “get lost” in 2012 with his criticism of Mr Lyons in 2015, saying the journalist didn’t contact him for comment – when Mr O’Brien would never have commented anyway.

Mr O’Brien said he was glad Mr McDowell mentioned the matter and again said Mr Lyons should have contacted him on the Friday evening before the Sunday Business Post article, and asked him specifically if he was “overstretched” and if he had “over borrowed”.

But when Mr McDowell asked him again if he would have responded to Mr Lyons, Mr O’Brien said: “The answer is no.”

Mr O’Brien said Mr McDowell was “mixing apples and oranges”.

Mr O’Brien said: “Why would any citizen of this country answer questions about their bank accounts?”

“Why would anyone discuss their private banking matters with a journalist… you’d want a bolt missing from your head to do that.”

He said it was “none of his business” and that if Mr Lyons asked him about this “visa card”, the answer would be the same: “It’s private”.

Going back to the 2012 Sunday Independent article, and the correspondence between Mr Morrissey and Mr Webb, in which Mr Morrissey accused Mr Lyons of being unprofessional and conducting himself in an unacceptable manner, Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that he was now “whinging” in the High Court claiming he had been defamed when he was “quite happy to defame somebody else in correspondence”.

Mr McDowell put to Mr O’Brien that he was accusing Mr Lyons of unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour because he didn’t put a specific figure [about his banking] to Mr O’Brien – a figure he never intended on confirming, denying or correcting.

Mr O’Brien replied: “That’s correct.”

Mr McDowell put it to the Mr O’Brien: “You’ve told the jury that you wouldn’t answer the question.”

Mr O’Brien replied: “Whether the number was right or wrong, I wouldn’t have answered it.”

Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that it was “utterly dishonest” of Mr Morrissey to defame Mr Lyons to his employers for failing to put an exact figure to Mr O’Brien when he knew Mr O’Brien wouldn’t comment.

Mr O’Brien said Mr Lyons got the wrong number and he shouldn’t have published any figure if it was inaccurate.

Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that he didn’t see the PwC report on Anglo Irish Bank which the Sunday Independent article was based upon.

Mr O’Brien confirmed this.

McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that he then couldn’t have known if Mr Lyons quoted accurately from the PwC report or not. Mr O’Brien said: “No”.

Asked again why he believed Mr Lyons had been unprofessional in his conduct, Mr O’Brien replied: “Because he published the incorrect information.”

Asked again why he didn’t give any information to Mr Lyons, following on from his requests, Mr O’Brien replied: “Because it’s none of his business.”

Mr O’Brien repeated again that to ask about his banking affairs is “grossly unfair” and an “invasion of privacy”.

Mr O’Brien said whether the figure was right or wrong, he wouldn’t have commented on it.

Asking Mr O’Brien how wrong the Sunday Independent figure was, Mr O’Brien wouldn’t say and asked Mr McDowell if he was now trying to invade his banking details.

He said: “I don’t mean to be rude but it’s my private banking matters. I have a right to privacy as a citizen, it’s grossly unfair.”

Mr McDowell further read out the response Mr Webb sent to Mr Morrissey in 2012 and into which he copied Declan Carlyle, who was an executive at INM at the time.

The jury heard Mr Webb told Mr Morrissey that his claim Mr Lyons had acted unprofessionally was “completely unacceptable” and that it was being rejected out of hand. Mr Webb said it was “baseless” and “defamatory” of Mr Lyons.

Mr Webb also said it was a “disgraceful slur” on Mr Lyons and he asked that Mr Morrissey “desist from disseminating this defamatory material forthwith”.

The jury also heard Mr Webb told Mr Morrissey that Mr Lyons had acted as he should have and it was he [Mr Morrissey] who gave “perfunctory answers”. Mr Webb asked Mr Morrissey if he’d like to send figures, they could run a clarification.

Mr O’Brien told Mr McDowell that he believed the latter comment was said “tongue in cheek”.

Mr McDowell asked Mr O’Brien if he had seen Mr Webb’s correspondence, in which he accused Mr O’Brien, via Mr Morrissey, of defaming Mr Lyons.

Mr O’Brien said he did.

Mr McDowell then asked Mr O’Brien how he then could have given evidence that he had got an apology from Mr Denieffe over the 2012 Sunday Independent article.

Mr O’Brien said: “Because Mr Morrissey told me that.”

Mr O’Brien said the correspondence in relation to Mr Denieffe was related to an entirely different matter. He said he had apologised to the court, that he was trying to be helpful last week and that he may have confused matters further – for which he was sorry.

Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that he must have known there was no apology over the 2012 article.

Mr O’Brien said that, last week, he said he wasn’t sure about the apology and that he had said he would have to check – which he has since done and that is why Mr McDowell’s solicitor had been contacted about the matter overnight.

Mr McDowell said that, far from INM giving an apology to him, they [INM] gave him “both barrels” over to the suggestion Mr Lyons had behaved wrongly.

Mr O’Brien said: “I’m saying to you there was another matter and other correspondence which led to an apology.”

He also again repeated that Mr Lyons had no right to ring anybody up and ask them about their private banking matters.

He said it wouldn’t happen in the UK and it shouldn’t have happened in Ireland.

He said it was “extraordinary that this journalist would be that ballsy” to ask about his banking and then, Mr O’Brien claimed, get the numbers “wrong”.

Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that he was refusing to divulge “how wrong” Mr Lyons was alleged to have been. He also said it was in the public interest to know about the insolvency of Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr O’Brien said it was his private business and said “we’re verging on voyerism, trying to find out what my banking details are, it’s not fair”.

Mr McDowell said the following to Mr O’Brien: “I’m going to put to you now that the fact that Anglo Irish Bank, at the time the PwC report was done, was hopefullsesy insolvent but pretending that it was solvent through the agency PWC report.

He added: “You were among the top 22 debtors of the Irish banking system at the time and one of the top 13 in Anglo Irish Bank, for which the taxpayer was going to carry the burden afterwards. Are you saying that that was an entirely private matter?”

Mr O’Brien said he was never a burden on any bank or IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank.

He added: “I became a customer of IBRC in 1990. I’m not responsible for them going into liquidation.”

Mr McDowell said Mr Lyons believed, and still believes, that the Irish public deserved to know that a huge amount of indebtedness was concentrated on a small number of people.

Mr O’Brien said they were going to disagree on this.

At one point Mr Justice Bernard Barton intervened to say the jury needed to fully understand a point which was being made by Mr McDowell.

Mr McDowell told Mr O’Brien he made a very serious complaint against Tom Lyons and his professional conduct in a letter, for failing to put a figure to Mr O’Brien – a figure which Mr O’Brien has since claimed was wrong, without now telling the court how wrong it is.

And, Mr McDowell said, Mr O’Brien is now complaining that he wasn’t contacted in 2015, in relation to the Sunday Business Post article, even though he would have likely said ‘no comment’.

Mr O’Brien said his first complaint is that Mr Lyons should never have published any number and, secondly, the figure that he did publish was “absolutely wrong”.

Mr O’Brien went on to compare the Sunday Independent and Sunday Business Post articles and said it was totally different to be called a “buccaneer” [in Sunday Independent] as opposed to being referred to as a member of a “gang” [in Sunday Business Post].

Mr McDowell read out the Oxford dictionary definition of “buccaneer”:

“A pirate, originally one operating in the Caribbean. A person who acts in a recklessly adventurous and often unscrupulous way, especially in business”.

Mr McDowell continued: “Are you seriously saying ‘buccaneer’ in the Sunday Independent was more complimentary than ‘gang’ in the Sunday Business Post?”

Mr O’Brien said he was. He said ‘buccaneer’ is the name of a sporting club in Galway and “not a derogatory term in my mind”.

He went on to say there was “no comparison” between the two articles and to compare them was like comparing “chalk and cheese”.

Mr McDowell also listed Mr O’Brien’s property interests in Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Spain – following on from Mr O’Brien giving evidence that he is not a property developer but a property investor.

At one point, Mr O’Brien quipped that Mr McDowell knew more about his property interests than he did.

Mr McDowell said he was depending on information in the public domain and Google.

Returning to the 2015 Sunday Business Post article, Mr McDowell put it to Mr O’Brien that, in 2008, PwC prepared a report for the Irish Government in which they indicated, among other things, first of all that the banks were claiming to be in rude health.

Secondly, in the report, PwC put together a list of 22 – not 21, not 23 – of people who they said were the top borrowers from the Irish banks.

Mr O’Brien said: “We don’t know this because I’ve never seen the PwC report.”

He said the court is “naked here today” because Mr Lyons destroyed his copy of the report after publication of his article.

Mr O’Brien claimed PwC would also never have used the words used by the newspaper to describe him.

Mr O’Brien said the article was a “hatchet job” and became “more salacious” as it continued over a number of pages in the newspaper.

Just before Mr O’Brien finished giving evidence, the judge again asked Mr O’Brien if it was his position that he basically told the Sunday Independent to get lost in 2012.

Mr O’Brien agreed this was the case and said his banking affairs were none of Mr Lyons’s business.

The judge asked Mr O’Brien if he would have taken the same approach if Mr Lyons contacted him in respect of the Sunday Business Post article.

Mr O’Brien said it would have depended on the question.

He said if he was told he would be described as a property developer and someone who had a detrimental effect on the country, that he was “overstretched”, he would have said that wasn’t true.

Mr Lyons has started to give evidence this afternoon.

Asked by Mr McDowell if he [Mr Lyons] believed that Mr O’Brien could have “brought down the country” when he wrote his article in the Sunday Business Post in 2015, Mr Lyons said: “No that’s ridiculous, no individual could bring down the country. That’s just ridiculous.”

Of his story based on the 2008 PwC report in the Sunday Business Post in 2015, Mr Lyons told the jury it was something which was “incredibly serious”, of “huge public interest” and that the newspaper took the matter “very, very seriously”.

He also said the list was created by PwC and the sequence of people was put together by PwC.

Asked why the Sunday Business Post reported the names of the 22 borrowers and their indebtedness contained in the 2008 PwC report, Mr Lyons said: “We felt that this was demonstrative of the concentrated risk in banks.”

He said it showed the banks were lending too much to too few people.

Asked if this was his judgement or PwC’s, Mr Lyons said it was PwC’s.

In relation to Mr O’Brien’s view that his banking interests are his private affairs and not of public interest, Mr Lyons recalled that Mr O’Brien mentioned his credit card details but went on to say this is not what the Sunday Business Post was reporting on in 2015.

Mr Lyons said he “couldn’t care less if Mr O’Brien pays for Netflix or Sky”.

He said the PwC report was about “big picture numbers” and that the report was paid for by taxpayers which the Government “used to say we’re not in trouble, let’s go with the banking guarantee, everything’s fine”.

He said the context of the report was the biggest financial crisis in the world, not just the biggest financial crisis in Ireland.

Mr Lyons said he accepted Mr O’Brien’s view but, in his opinion, the PwC report was an “important document prepared by the State into what happened in the banks and public interest trumps one man’s opinion”.

Mr Lyons also said that he and his editor Ian Kehoe did have a conversation about whether or not they should have included Mr O’Brien’s name in the list.

He said: “But we said either it was in the public interest or it wasn’t. He [Denis O’Brien] was in there, we had to leave him in there.”

He said the debate over whether to publish Mr O’Brien’s name or not came about because “it’s fair to say, he sues a lot of journalists”.

Mr Lyons said there was a “fear factor there around him”.

But, he said himself and Mr Kehoe decided: “no, we’ve got to be brave here, we’ve got to include him”.

He said they couldn’t leave Mr O’Brien out and treat him as a special case over any possible fears that to include him would harm their future careers.

To further contextualise his point, Mr Lyons looked directly at Mr O’Brien when he said, by way of an example, this could have been a real fear if he were to ever potentially go back to work in either Newstalk or Today FM – radio stations which are both owned by Mr O’Brien.

Mr Lyons said the newspaper “reported faithfully” what was in the PwC report.

The court has heard that the banking inquiry, which was taking place at the time of the publication of the Sunday Businss Post article in 2015, requested of Mr Lyons a copy of the PwC report.

But, at this point, Mr Lyons had already destroyed it, to protect his source.

Asked if he was surprised when the inquiry asked him for the report, Mr Lyons said:

“It did surprise me. I had this suspicion they hadn’t got it. It was a gut instinct. But when it came out that they hadn’t got it, I was very surprised.”

Denis O’Brien arrives at the High Courtn to continue giving evidence in a defamation action against The Sunday Business Post.

Mr O’Brien’s lawyers told the jury they should award Mr O’Brien “substantial damages to reflect the seriousness of allegations made” in a number of articles in the newspaper almost four years which gave details of a 2008 report by accountants PwC into Ireland’s banks.

Mr [Michael] McDowell SC asked Mr O’Brien to point out where the articles suggested that he personally was responsible for any wrongdoing.

He quoted the Carly Simon song “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you,” and suggested it applied to Mr O’Brien who seemed to think people would believe everything in the articles referred to him.

Mr O’Brien said he was not aware Mr McDowell was a music buff, to which Mr McDowell replied that he was a great fan of music station 98FM.

RTÉ’s former south-east correspondent for 23 years Damien Tiernan – who recently stepped down from his €90,000-a-year job at RTÉ, took redundancy and started working at Waterford’s WLR FM radio station – outlined the reasons he left the State broadcaster.

He told journalist Colette Sexton in The Sunday Business Post that he took redundancy mainly “due to frustration at not being able to get stories on air”.

Mr Tiernan added:

“All of the correspondents in RTÉ are constantly trying to get stories on air, but the system does not allow that to happen as [well] as it could. That needs to be improved and the frustration around that is certainly one of the reasons that I left RTÉ. I couldn’t see myself begging to get stories on air for the next 15 years.”

He claimed, in the early 2000s, RTÉ’s studio in Waterford produced an average of 220 TV and radio stories a year, but in the past seven years this had dropped to between 50 and 60 stories a year for RTÉ News.

In a statement to Ms Sexton, RTÉ said it “didn’t recognise” Mr Tiernan’s figures.

Mr Tiernan also said:

“The depth of talent and skill and passion within RTÉ is enormous, and that creativity is stifled at so many levels. For a supposedly creative organisation, it doesn’t know how to develop that creativity to make people confident of the future.

“RTÉ is in a great process of change, like other media organisations. Everybody is grappling with the changes, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You don’t need to get in consultants. You just have to work with the talent you have and make people happy in their jobs.”

Following on from this interview in the Sunday Business Post, the managing director of RTÉ Jon Williams tweeted the article with the message:

Agree RTÉ has brilliant correspondents – which is a why we’ve just appointed new regional correspondents in Dundalk & Belfast. Odd definition of “slashing”. Wish @damienwlrfm every success in new role.

Mr Tiernan responded:

Am disgusted, disappointed but not surprised by RTÉ basically calling me a liar with my figures Jon; RTE does not recognise my figures because RTÉ doesn’t care enough to ask someone to count them. And you were forced re reappoint North East Corresponden by unions after ye tried to downgrade role.

If you want to get into a public spat with me bring it on but I have better things to do (like playing an over 35 soccer match); I love RTÉ more than you will ever know.